


A Heart, Closing

by grandfatherclock



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Body Horror, Gen, Horror Elements, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:08:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21992704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grandfatherclock/pseuds/grandfatherclock
Summary: All is not right in the Ikithon estate.
Relationships: Bren Aldric Ermendrud & Trent Ikithon
Kudos: 47





	A Heart, Closing

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the poem _Detail of the Woods_ by Richard Siken.
> 
> I used the tag "Horror Elements" to convey the feeling of hunting for and being stalked by unknowable elements. If you have suggestions for more specific tag warnings, please leave them in the comments <3

It was a still night when Master Ikithon sent him out into the woods. 

There was no storm, no shuddering of the trees, no movement of shadows outside the statuesque walls of the splendid manor. The air was heavy, dewy as Bren turned to look back at Master Ikithon standing by the double doors held up by two servants. His eyebrow was raised, looking to the way Bren's fingers twitched against his held spellbook. Bren forced them to still. 

It was a still night, outside of the screaming. 

It was a woman's voice, and Bren thinks it might've been lovely once, were it not long dried out and cracking. She doesn't quite say words, just sobs into the distance before quieting for several minutes. Bren knows she'll pick up again soon, it's been like clockwork for the last fifteen minutes. 

Master Ikithon expects him to find the intruder himself. 

Part of Bren deeply suspects this is a test. His arms ache as he thinks that. Thinks _test_. His head feels too light from the way Master Ikithon shaved it, hand on his shoulder and a word of encouragement as fiery locks fell all around him. Like embers from a campfire. Astrid watched his expression, watched the set of his jaw, arms crossed in front of her chest. Uniform pristine and perfect. Bren schooled his face into a flat expression, and one corner of her mouth very nearly curled up. 

But Master Ikithon sounded _angry_ when a guard interrupted their dinner to inform him of the interruption. To go through his kind of act... it was all a little juvenile. A kind of play-acting that would be insulting to associate with his teacher. Bren's fingers curled tighter around his spellbook as he stepped off the grand white porch, boots finally crunching against the fallen leaves on the ground. 

The gardener tends to the estate in the mornings. The land is more raw than Master Ikithon would want it. 

Bren's always run warm. He's grateful for it now, as he sees his breath in front of him in the air. These soft puffs that follow after him as he heads towards the cluster of trees that border the edge of the thick forest. Master Ikithon didn't allow him his thicker robes, said to him with his lips curved low that _this should not take long enough for you to require more layers, Bren_. His tone made Bren's face bloom into a flush, looking down and resisting the urge to exhale too deeply. It was the wrong question to ask, _it was the wrong question to ask—_

There are no footfalls. Bren strains his ears, but there's silence, not even tree branches rustling against each other. Strange how cold it is without any wind. He feels the stiffness working its way on his fingers, up his arms, on his toes, and he knows as he watches the shadows around him, only illuminated by faint moonlight, that there is no one following him. 

The screaming will start again, soon. 

Bren says, before it has the chance, "Stop your wailing." He says it dismissively, his eyebrow raised like Master Ikithon's. His words are curt, clipped, a cold inflection to them, and... there is no scream. No croak of a long-abused voice, animalistic and pathetic like a hound. Nothing. 

It cannot be this easy. 

But Bren is cold. 

He casts _Firebolt_ , telling himself it's to see if the momentary brightness as he hurls it uselessly into the ground will make something visible, make something obvious in a way it wasn't before. 

It's a juvenile lie. 

He walks over to the burning mess of leaves on the ground, the fire crackling and blackening them as the flames sway with Bren's movement. Bren looks around as he stamps it out, and the feeling of heat against his cold toes breaks a traitorous shaking breath past his parted lips. 

The air is tense, waiting for a scream. 

Bren waits for evidence of his continued fucking failure. He wonders if Astrid is watching from the windows. He wonders if Master Ikithon allowed her to. 

There are embers from the fire that are dying out. Floating into the ground. Bren looks at them, looks to his boots, and then... _startles_ as he sees another light, not quite like the weak little flames that sputtered out his outstretched palm into the inky depths of the night. This light flickers, and Bren watches it for a moment, leaning closer to see that it’s a… firefly. A _firefly_. He exhales through his teeth, smiling weakly at it as he watches the wings twitch, floating behind a tree like it’s less an insect and more a balloon being tugged away.

Bren blinks, and finds himself following.

After all, he’s never seen fireflies in Master Ikithon’s property before.

Something in his gut feels… heavy. Heavy in that way he feels when he takes a sip from Master Ikithon’s tea and his tongue takes in the flavours of the rich spices, leaving this vaguely tingling sensation that he has never quite gotten used to. Heavy in the way that his head feels clouded after too much blood loss, another duel with Astrid that they do not allow themselves to take each other easy on. Heavy in the way his arms felt out of balance after the first… the first surgery, when the weight of the crystals and the bandages made him need to reassess how to brace his shoulders, how to stand to maintain the perfect balance while looking at ease.

The fireflies bloom out behind the tree Bren curls around. They seem to come out from the bark, crawling out like ants in the dirt before flying out like an eruption of magic, like _Poison Spray_ out Astrid’s hand. Bren watches them, enraptured for a moment by the mundanity of such an excess—he’s used to excess in the ornate cups Master Ikithon sips from, and the perfectly form-fitting robes he wears himself and instructs his pupils to wear in turn, the layers lush and perfect. But not in _this_ , not in nature.

Bren watches the fireflies for too long. He watches for too long, and he does not notice, until the eruption begins to recede in its intensity, that two of the blinking lights are not moving away.

Bren is frozen. He is twenty minutes of walking distance from the manor, seven minutes if he runs, and he is _frozen_.

There is no running. This is his task. This is his _mission_.

He raises his hand to cast _Scorching Ray_ , the fire ripping out from his palm, but then he sees _teeth_ —and it’s impossible he should see teeth because there’s nothing _there_. It does not matter. Under the two coin-like eyes that don’t move from their positions suspended in space, he sees dozens of sharp, gleaming teeth, razor-thin and too numerous to count. He feels a part of his brain try to, regardless. The embers seem to freeze in the air and his hand is stuck, _his hand is stuck_.

The teeth are glowing. They glow in a distant orange-tinged light. Bren hears a _wretched_ scream, so loud and baleful his hair might’ve been pushed back by the force had he much left. He tries to push away from the sound, but his hand is outstretched, and soon—

Soon, soon, soon. He’s stuck. His hand is stuck, and it’s like the stiffness of the cold is pushing forcefully onto his body, dragging his movement down with its lethargy. “ _Scheisse,_ ” he swears, kicking at the dirt as he tries to use his body weight to make the air let _go_. It doesn’t quite work, and were that he not trapped, he would’ve crumpled through the ground.

The outline of the teeth and eyes get closer, closer to his shaking hand— _his hand is stuck in the night air and it can’t stop shaking_ —and Bren lets out this animalistic _snarl_ that he doesn’t quite realize belongs to him. Pain erupts up his arm, and he watches vicious glowing needle-sharp fangs drag along his wrapped bandages, the cloth soaking up some of the red as those depthless eyes watch him. The two of them move smoothly, never blinking, never faltering, and Bren wonders for a moment if he’s going to die here.

Die like this.

Then his mind clears. The heat of the pulsing blood works against the paralyzing cold, and Bren uses his other hand holding his spellbook to _swing_ with it, using the momentum to fucking tear into the side of this _thing_ with the jagged metal spine. The liquid that erupts off it is glowing, and Bren watches it for a moment, thinking of the embers.

Then the force on his arm lets go, and he crumples into the ground.

His back aches against the jagged rocks hidden amongst the leaves that break his fall. He ignores it. He remembers what Master Ikithon told him all that time ago, a hand squeezing his arm where it still ached from the crystals. Tears sprung in Bren’s eyes, as predictable as clockwork, and Ikithon raised a thumb to them, brushing them away as he continued to put pressure where the scars were. _The body is built for suffering, my boy_ , he said, his voice sympathetic. Bren was whimpering out pleas. _Mind over matter._

Bren is vaguely aware that he’s being attacked, that teeth are ripping into his chest and his blood is dancing in the air like ribbons. He’s aware that it's getting colder and hotter, all at once. His shoulder is exposed from the way the beast ripped off his sleeve, making the chill that much more evident, and the blood is fucking pulsing _everywhere_. His clothes feel sticky. The creature screams, again and again, as it rips into him, and _Bren_ … is sick of it.

“ _Stop_ ,” he snarls, and for a second he wonders from the sound of that voice, from it’s hateful and icy inflection, if Master Ikithon came to help him after all, and finds relief in the absence of golden-and-white robes following an old man’s movement. “ _Your._ ” He swings his spellbook at it, and grips at the maw with his other hand, holding it open as he uses his legs to twist the creature, until Bren is on top, Bren is holding it down. “ _Wailing_.” Bren’s hands on his neck, and he is smothering it.

There are lights in the distance. Blood loss makes everything hazy, and Bren blinks back red as he looks up, to see… more little coins. More rows of teeth. They peek out from the trees, watching him curiously, but do not intervene as Bren’s hands tighten on its throat, as Bren commits murder, as Bren spits on the corpse and stumbles up, hands shaking and then _not_ as he casts _Firebolt_.

_Don’t be messy_ , Ikithon whispered in his ear when Bren looked to him, the prisoner bleeding out on the table.

Bren didn’t used to be so addicted to the goddamn embers.

He watches the outline of a person in the fire dully. The arms are dotted strangely, burning less than everything else, but soon even that flesh is corroded. He breathes in the putrid fumes, the smell so sickening it brings additional little tears pricking at his eyes, and when the bonfire slowly starts to recede out, Bren looks to the sun in the cool morning, staring down at him in disappointed judgement.

Bren is sitting beside the died out flames. He finally feels wind shudder against his skin, and he lets out a shaking breath before forcing a disinterested smile on his face. His knees shake as he gets up. His clothes are still sticky.

He begins the twenty minute walk back to the manor.

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for _The Trials of Apollo, Book One: The Hidden Oracle_ with the quote below.
> 
> "Finally, in my mind, something clicked. I remembered how my father used to punish me centuries ago, when I was a young god learning the ways of Olympus. Zeus used to say, _Don't get on the wrong side of my lightning bolts, boy_.
> 
> As if the lightning bolt had a mind of its own—as if Zeus had nothing to do with the punishments he meted out on me.
> 
> _Don't blame me_ , his tone implied. _It's the lightning bolt that seared every molecule in your body._ Many years later, when I killed the Cyclopes who made Zeus's lightning, it was no rash decision. I'd always _hated_ those lightning bolts. It was easier than hating my father."
> 
> —Rick Riordan, _The Trials of Apollo, Book One: The Hidden Oracle_


End file.
